Philip Margolin - Gone ,but not forgotten

Nancy walked slowly to the bottom of the stairs.

She recognized Ann Hazelton only from her red hair.

Her legs were drawn up to her chest in a fetal position and she was whimpering pitifully. Ann's husband had furnished a photograph of her standing on the eighteenth hole of their country club golf course, a smile on her face and a yellow ribbon holding back her long red hair.

Gloria Escalante was in the second stall. There was no expression on her face, but Nancy saw tears in her eyes as a doctor bent next to her to check her vital signs and a policeman went to work on her shackles.

Nancy began to shake. Wayne Turner walked up behind her and put his hands on her arms.

"Come on," he said gently, "we're just in the way."

Nancy let herself be led up the stairs into the light.

Governor Colby had glanced into the basement for a moment, then backed out of the farmhouse into the fresh air.

His skin was gray and he was sitting on one of the steps that led up to the porch, looking like he did not have the strength to stand.

Nancy looked across the yard. She spotted the car holding Lake. Frank Grimsbo was standing guard outside it. Lake's attorney had wandered off to smoke. Nancy walked past the governor. He asked her if the women were all right, but she did not answer. Wayne Turner walked beside her." Let it be, Nancy," he said. Nancy ignored him.

Frank Grimsl)o looked up expectantly. "They're all alive," Turner said.

Nancy bent down and looked at Lake.

The back window was open a crack, so the prisoner could breathe in the stifling heat. Lake turned toward Nancy.

He was rested and at peace, knowing he would soon be free.

Lake smirked, goading her with his eyes but saying nothing. If he expected Nancy to rage at him, he was mistaken. Her face was blank, but her eyes bored into Lake. "It's not over," she said. Then she stood up and walked toward a stand of trees on the side of the house away from the barn. With her back to the farmhouse, all she could see was beauty.

There was cool shade the greenery. The smell of grass and wildflowers. A bird sang. The horror Nancy felt when she saw the captive women was gone. Her anger was gone. She knew the future and was not afraid of it.

No woman would ever have to fear Peter Lake again, because Peter Lake was a dead man.

Nancy Gordon wore a black jogging outfit, her white Nikes were coated with black shoe polish, and her short hair was held back by a navy blue head band, making her impossible to see in the dim light of the moon that hung over The Meadows. Her car was parked on a quiet side street.

Nancy locked it and loped through a back yard. She was strung tight and conscious of every sound. A dog barked, but the houses on either side stayed dark.

Until Peter Lake came into her life, Nancy Gordon had never hated another human being. She wasn't even certain she hated Lake. What she felt went beyond hate.

From the moment she saw those women in the farmhouse basement, Nancy knew Lake had to be removed, the same way vermin were removed.

Nancy was a cop, sworn to uphold the law. She respected the law. But this situation was so far outside normal human experience that she did not feel everyday laws applied. No one could do what Peter Lake had done to those women and walk away. She could not be expected to wait day after day for the newspaper that brought news of the next disappearance.

She knew the minute Lake's body was found she would be a prime suspect.

God knows, she did not want to spend the rest of her life in prison, but there was no alternative. If she was caught, so be it. If she killed Lake and walked away, it was God's will. She could live with the consequences of her act. She could not live with the consequences of letting Peter Lake go free.

Nancy circled behind Lake's two-story colonial skirting the man-made lake. The houses on either side of Lake's were dark, but there were lights on in his living room. Nancy glanced at her digital watch. It was three-thirty a.m. Lake should be asleep. Nancy knew the security system in the house was equipped with automatic timers for the lights and decided to gamble that that was why the living room was lit.

Nancy crouched down and ran across the back yard.

When she reached the house, she pressed herself against the side wall.

She was holding a.38 Ed had seized from a drug dealer two years ago. Ed never reported the seizure and the gun could not be traced to her.

Nancy crept around to the front door. She had studied the crime scene photographs earlier that evening.

Mentally, she walked herself through Lake's house, remembering as much as she could about the layout from her only visit. She had learned Lake's — alarm code during the murder investigation. The alarm panel was to the right of the door. She would have to disarm it quickly.

The street in front of Lake's house was deserted.

Nancy had taken Sandra Lake's keys from an evidence locker at the police station. She turned the front door key in the lock, then took out a penlight. Nancy grasped the doorknob with her free hand, took a deep breath, and pushed it open. The alarm emitted a screeching sound.

She trained the penlight on the keyboard and punched in the code. The sound stopped. Nancy swung around and held her gun out. Nothing. She exhaled, switched off the penlight and straightened.

A quick tour of the ground floor confirmed Nancy's guess about the lights in the living room. After making certain no one was downstairs, Nancy edged up the stairs, her gun leading the way, The second floor was dark. The first room on the left was Lake's bedroom.

When she came level with the landing, she saw his door was closed.

Nancy approached the door slowly, walking carefully even though the carpet muffled her footfalls. She paused next to the door and walked through the shooting in her head. Ease open the door, switch on the light, then shoot into Lake until the gun was empty. She breathed in and exhaled as she opened the door, an inch at a time.

Her eyes adjusted to the dark. She could see the outline of the king-size bed that dominated the room.

Nancy cleared her mind of hate and all other feelings.

She removed herself from the action. She was not killing a person. She was shooting into an object. just like target practice. Nancy slipped into the room, hit the switch and aimed.

"The bed was empty," Wayne Turner told Betsy. "Lake was gone. He started planning his disappearance the day after he murdered his wife and daughter. All but one of his bank accounts had been emptied the day after the murder and several of his real estate holdings had been sold.

His lawyer was handling the sale of his house. Carstairs said he didn't know where Lake was. No one could compel him to tell, anyway, because of the attorney-client privilege. We assumed that Carstairs had instructions to send the money he collected to accounts in Switzerland or the Caymans."

"Chief O'Malley called me immediately," Senator Colby said. "I was sick.

Signing Lake's pardon was the most difficult thing I've ever done, but I couldn't think of anything else to do. I couldn't let those women die.

When O'Malley told me Lake had disappeared — all I could think of was the innocent victims he might claim because of me."

"Why didn't you go public?" Betsy asked. "You could have let everyone know who Lake was and what he'd done."

"Only a few people knew Lake was the rose killer and we were sworn to silence by the terms of the pardon."

"Once the women were free, why didn't you say to hell with him and go public anyway?"

Colby looked into the fire. His voice sounded hollow when be answered.